Make a dating profile

“While I can’t look at the box, you have to make an online dating profile.”

“What? That’s not fair... You said you didn’t hide the pieces, so we can skip the punishments. No harm, no foul.”

“Oh, I absolutely should be punished, and so should you. The faster you post the profile, the sooner you can take advantage of my punishment. It’ll only take you about thirty minutes.”

“No... lets just do the puzzle...”

I tap my fingers on the ice cream tub, bringing her eyes back to it, letting her guilty conscience shut her up. She bites her lip in her personal ****.

“You asked for my help. Now I’m helping you.”

“Crap.” That is the closest thing to a swear I’ve heard coming from Mindy’s mouth.

Twenty minutes later, she is filling out fields on her iPad as fast as she can while I struggle to do the puzzle blind.

“This isn’t the way I’d imagined doin this... A half-hour my ass.” she grumbles.

“You got this. Think of the time savings!”

“Whatever.” She taps away for a while, then pauses. “What would you say one of my strengths is?”

“Hey, this is your punishment, not mine.”

“Come on, I need an outside perspective here.”

“You are fun to spend the whole day with.” I hear no reply so I look over at her. She is looking at me with a kind smile. “And you have a great smile.” She immediately tries to stop smiling, but her contorting mouth and smiling eyes foil her attempt.

“Whatever.”

“Honest.” I focus on the frustrating process of trying every permutation of the pieces in front of me. She taps something into the tablet.

“Best physical trait.” I smile to myself but keep my mouth shut, working on the puzzle. “Can’t thing of anything better than my smile?”

“I can, but you might not want to write it.”

“Tell me.”

“The first thing that came to mind is ‘milf bod’.”

“Milf? What’s that?”

“It’s a complement.”

“Can you be more specific?”

“I’d rather not.”

“I’m just going to look it up then.”

“Be my guest.”

Ten seconds later she coughs. “Oh. OH! Uh... Are you sure you know what milf means?”

“I know what it means.” Snap. I look up at her. She is staring over her tablet at me. I don’t know what to say so I just give her a wink and get back to the task at hand.

“Nonsense. You can find sexy young things anywhere, I can’t compete—not that I am trying.” She sighs. “I can’t write that answer anyway so...lets move on. How about a weakness?”

“Can’t accept a compliment,” I grumble.

“Come on, I need a real one.”

“Seriously. You have a horrible habit of underestimating your worth. You let it keep you down.”

“You think so?” She asks, any sign of her smile is gone.

“Yep. You are all kinds of awesome, just accept it.”

She taps her finger on the edge of the tablet. “I’ll just shorten all that to ‘Overly awesome.’—for time savings.”

“You can add ‘annoying smarty pants’ to weaknesses.”

“Yeah, I should add that...under...strengths.”

It is nearly an hour before Mindy stops pestering me with questions and pumping me for more complements.

“Okay, I am done for now. I don’t need to make it public yet, right?”

“Sure you do. This wasn’t a practice.”

“Grrrr... I would like to review it carefully before putting it out there.”

I consider her request for a moment. “If you throw the ice cream away, you get twenty-four hours to review the profile. Otherwise you need to post it now.”

“Remind me not to ask for your help next time.” She looks from me to the freezer, then back again. “Fine. Throw it. Can I beat you at this puzzle now?”

“You are welcome to try.”